Welcome to Scientists-at-Large
Scientists-at-Large is an outreach program designed, launched and managed by Dr. Willand-Charnley and the Willand-Charnley Lab scientists (undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral). Collectively, where Scientists lead hands on, inquiry based, science experiments with curious minds.
What is the benefit of the Scientists-at-Large program?
Scientists-at-Large aims to demystify science, harnessing the inherent curiosity and interest in learning about how “things work,” through hands on experiments.
What is the benefit to society as a result of the Scientists-at-Large program?
Utilizing intellectual diversity, meaning bringing many different perspectives and areas of expertise, to collaborate on a solution to solve a problem is the key to the advancement of science, health, and in generating long-term sustainable solutions to problems for society and as a society. Yet, from K-12 the percentage of curious minds that remain within STEM declines and more concerning is that interest in STEM fields doesn’t recover. Somewhere, Science becomes scary and “too hard.” As a Scientific community, we need to do better at demystifying Science. Thus, through hands-on educational experiences that demystify Science with a diverse cohort of scientists, the program offers a fun, safe, scientific experience for all.
Dr. Willand-Charnley’s Prior Outreach Experience
Dr. Willand-Charnley is an applied interdisciplinary organic glycol-cancer immunologist. They received their B.S. at Creighton University and their Ph.D. (in chemistry) at the University of Nebraska (Lincoln) under the direction of Prof. Patrick Dassault. They went on to become a NIH NIGMS Institutional Research and Academic Career Award fellow at Stanford University, under the direction of Nobel Laureate Carolyn Bertozzi, the goal of which was to increase diversity into the STEM sciences via diversification of pedagogical practices to communicate science to a diverse audience. Additionally, they were also a EPSCoR Communicating Science to the Public fellow in which they developed experiments for K-5 students.
Aside from fellowships focused on increasing diversity into the STEM sciences. During their time at both the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University they were a Bay Area Scientist in Schools (BASIS), where scientists visited classrooms performed hands on experiments in K-5 classrooms throughout the Bay Area. In addition, they spearheaded the initial development of the K-5 outreach program that became integrated into Stanford University’s Inspiring Future Scientist (IFS) outreach program. They worked with Dr. Schwartz-Poehlmann to implement this component of the program. They bring their wealth of experience to the Brookings and surrounding communities.
The Willand-Charnley Lab
The Willand-Charnley Lab consists of interdisciplinary applied organic chemists, glycobiologists and cancer immunologists. The lab’s overall objective is to identify chronic biological problem facing society and generate solutions synergistically through both the lab’s organic chemistry and biochemistry programs resulting in cross-disciplinary research, insights, and scientists, both at the undergraduate and graduate level. Currently the Willand-Charnley lab has three areas of focus because of our objective: 1. elucidate glycan related biochemical mechanisms of action, 2. Glycan related synthetic methods development, and 3. Glycan related therapeutic development. Concerning biochemical mechanisms of action, the lab is focused on understanding how cancers utilize functionalized sugar residues, specifically Sialic Acid, to participate in tumorigenic processes, metastasis, immune evasion, multidrug resistance, and more recently how that altered communication extends to other members of the immune system by decreasing the release of cytokines and chemokines, resulting in increasing cancer’s survival. The lab has identified a critical functional group alteration, deacetylation, on Sialic acid that allows colon and lung cancers to evade the immune system, participate in multi-drug resistance, and engage in metastatic processes with various cellular members of the immune system. The need for facile and robust synthetic methods surrounding Sialic acid was recognized early in the organic program, as such we began developing the foundational methods in which we are building upon today to synthesize -sialylated glycosidic linkages, spirolactone and cycles. Being at the intersect of chemistry and biology allows the lab the unique advantage of developing therapeutics and testing those therapeutics to address the critical need in house and with assurance. The lab has three ongoing projects in the realm of therapeutic development two involving cancer and one in chemical warfare. Concerning cancer, the lab has been working on two enzyme-antibody conjugates that target lung and colon cancers, altering the functional groups on their cell’s surface exposing them to the immune mediated killing. In addition, the lab is finalizing the synthesis of a therapeutic involving a derivative of cisplatin that will be entering in vitro testing. Lastly, we identified a novel therapeutic in which to treat sulfur mustard poisoning that is now moving to in vivo models.